Founded in Bologna in 2015, tosc@ is a biennial meeting designed to give scholars, artists and opera lovers from different countries the opportunity to come together. The name of the conference is an acronym:

Transnational
O pera
S tudies
C onference
@
with the final word referring to the host city.

Open to all approaches, forms, genres and periods, the tosc@ conference aims to unite the excellence and boldness of contemporary research on opera and musical theatre in general. The conference moves from place to place, encouraging the presence of contributors from the host countries, enlarging the circle of its participants and promoting encounters between cultures and sensibilities. In this way it hopes to foster interest in opera studies in the younger generation of researchers, be they musicologists or scholars from other disciplines. Papers may be given in the language(s) of the host country or in English. Everyone is invited to take part, regardless of their professional status.

tosc@bayreuth.2021

Following the success of the first three meetings (tosc@bologna.2015, tosc@bern.2017 and tosc@paris.2019), the fourth edition of the tosc@ conference will take place at the University of Bayreuth, Germany, from June 24–26, 2021. Since 1976 the University has hosted a unique Research Institute for Music Theatre, located in the nearby Castle of Thurnau. With the Richard Wagner Festspielhaus and the Margravial Opera House the city of Bayreuth is filled with operatic history and culture, which can be explored by all participants in the diverse organized activities accompanying the conference.
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The Programme Committee consists of:

Luisa Cymbron (Universidade NOVA de Lisboa),

Nils Grosch (Universität Salzburg),

Kordula Knaus (Universität Bayreuth),

Gundula Kreuzer (Yale University),

Raphaëlle Legrand (Université Paris-Sorbonne),

Isabelle Moindrot (Université Paris 8),

Anno Mungen (Universität Bayreuth)

and Benjamin Walton (University of Cambridge).

Kordula Knaus and Anno Mungen are also the conference organizers.
The Programme Committee welcomes proposals in the following formats:

- individual papers (20 minutes long, with 10 minutes for discussion);

- themed sessions (three or four papers, each 20 minutes long with 10 minutes for discussion – please note that the Committee reserves the right to accept one or several proposals on a separate basis even if the entire panel is not selected);

- roundtable sessions (90 minutes long, up to six people each giving a brief position paper, followed by a general discussion).

We invite submissions on any subject related to opera and other forms of musical and music theatre. Presentations which integrate performative aspects, or other alternative formats, are welcome. Methodologies may be varied, traversing disciplines and perspectives: verbal text, music, drama, performance, body, voice, interpretation, declamation, painting, scenography, dance, staging, stage technology, cinema, photography, video, television, radio, digital arts, as well as reception, historiography, economics, ecology, opera and society, opera and the media, opera and the other arts, etc.

Reflecting the special research interests of the University of Bayreuth with its Research Institute for Music Theatre and the ‘Africa Multiple’ cluster of Excellence, proposals focusing on performance research and practices as well as proposals focusing on perspectives of racially or culturally ‘othered’ operatic phenomena are encouraged. Furthermore, proposals that engage with questions of opera at the periphery of the traditional Western operatic culture and opera in a globalized world, as well as transnational perspectives, will be of particular interest to the committee. Preference will be given to proposals that explore questions and problematics, rather than simply offering descriptive accounts.

Proposals may be submitted in English, French, German or Italian. They must include the following:

– author’s full name, – country and institution, – e-mail address, – paper title, – abstract.

Abstracts should be prepared as follows:

- individual papers: maximum 350 words;

- themed sessions: a 250-word summary outlining the aims of the session and a 350-word abstract for each paper;

- roundtable sessions: a 250-word summary outlining the aims of the session, and a brief description of each position paper.

Typically, an academic abstract should include a clear statement of the topic and research question(s), contextualized within existing knowledge; a summary of the argument, evidence and conclusions; and an explanation of why the topic and findings are important. Abstracts should thus include all necessary information that will allow the Programme Committee to evaluate the paper’s quality and originality and its potential as an oral presentation.

Proposals must be submitted as attachments by email as a Word file (“.doc” or “.docx” – not “.pdf”) to:

tosc@uni-bayreuth.de

by September 30, 2020

Everyone submitting a proposal will be sent a confirmation email; if you do not receive a notification within six days, please resend the proposal. All abstracts will be anonymized before being evaluated by the Programme Committee. Do not include any information in your abstract that could reveal your identity (such as ‘As I have shown in my earlier article…’).

All those who have submitted a proposal will be notified of the outcome by the beginning of January 2021. Following acceptance by the Programme Committee, there will be an opportunity to revise abstracts before their publication in the conference programme.

FEES
As for other events of this kind, participants (speakers and spectators) will be required to pay for themselves. The precise registration fee will depend on the number of participants, and will be confirmed when the notification of accepted papers is sent; it will, however, be no more than € 100 (€ 50 for students and scholars from the Global South), and will include three buffets. A special effort will be made for scholars from the Global South in order to provide travel grants. ​

THE tosc@bayreuth.2021 AWARD
The Programme Committee will offer an award for the best paper presented by a junior scholar at the conference. All those who started their doctoral research in 2010 or later and whose papers are accepted for the conference, will be eligible. Those who wish to be considered for this award must submit the final version of their paper to the Programme Committee (accompanied by any musical examples, images, etc.) to tosc@uni-bayreuth.de by May 20, 2021.

The tosc@bayreuth.2021 award will be awarded at the end of the event (June 26, 2021). The winner will be invited to submit the oral presentation as a full article for publication in a prominent international peer-reviewed journal, and will be invited to present a new paper at a plenary session of the fifth edition of tosc@.

CALENDAR
September 30, 2020: Deadline for the candidates’ submissions
Early January 2021: Announcement of the results
May 20, 2021: Deadline for submissions to the tosc@bayreuth.2021 award
May 20 – June 20, 2021: Evaluation of young researchers’ papers
June 24–26, 2021: tosc@bayreuth.2021